Federico Viticci

10881 posts on MacStories since April 2009

Federico is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of MacStories, where he writes about Apple with a focus on apps, developers, iPad, and iOS productivity. He founded MacStories in April 2009 and has been writing about Apple since. Federico is also the co-host of AppStories, a weekly podcast exploring the world of apps, Unwind, a fun exploration of media and more, and NPC: Next Portable Console, a show about portable gaming and the handheld revolution.
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@viticci.macstories.net
viticci@macstories.net

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Tweeterena Developer Puts His App For Sale On eBay

I guess the “Twitter bought Tweetie” should have scared the hell out of many 3rd party developers. And I quite understand their position, as it’s not easy to develop a Twitter client knowing that Twitter itself bought the best client on the market and made it official. And free.

That’s why many devs are freaking out. I’ve heard many of them claiming that they will quit development of their apps, others who are simply very sad about the situation. And some who decided to sell their own suite of applications on eBay. Keep on reading to find out what exactly happened.

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Windows 95, Running on the iPad

Remember Windows ‘95? Sadly, I do. Well it turns out that a team of russian developers have managed to run Windows 95 on the iPad, using an emulator called BOCHS, modified for the iPad.

Be sure to check out the video after the break. How long before a Linux distribution for the iPad?

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Offline Pages for iPad: Simple and Free Offline Reading

We’ve heard so many times that the iPad is the perfect device to consume content and you know what, after some days of testing I have to agree. The iPad is just perfect to read, watch movies and listen to music. Instapaper on the iPad feels great, and so does the iPod app. Safari is very well developed, it’s fast and makes it easy to jump from one page to another just to read what’s new. I’ve never done stuff like this on my iPhone. But on the other hand, don’t listen to those who say you can’t produce content on the iPad: I’m finding myself writing entire posts, taking notes and storing screenshots with it. All in all, it’s a great productivity device.

Back to using the iPad as a reading device, there’s Instapaper and a couple of good feeds readers that allow me to stay up to date with the latest news and read longer articles from my couch or bed without having to worry about carrying the MacBook with me. It’s a good environment. I’ve just found out this other application though, free in the App Store, which is called Offline Pages and might come in handy if you’re not a fan of Instapaper.

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New iPhone Dev Agreement Bans the Use of 3rd Party Services and Analytics

There’s a been a lot of talking about the now famous Section 3.3.1 of the iPhone Dev Agreement, the one that bans applications written in other programming languages than Objective C. As Gruber pointed out in his Steve Jobs-endorsed post, Apple wants to make Obj-C and the Cocoa Touch API the de facto standard for mobile applications, period.

But in my opinion that of banned cross-compilers is not that a big of a deal compared to what developers found out in Section 3.3.9 of the iPhone Dev Agreement.

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Want the Perfect iPad Stand? There’s A Cat For That

Seriously, something must be wrong with people. I don’t know how to explain otherwise these pictures appeared over at OS X Daily of some people using their cats as iPad stands. Read again, cats as iPad stands. And quite useful stands, they say.

[UPDATE]: Turns out the cat actually happened to be at the right place at the right time. The idea could be explored, anyway.

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Apple Vs. Adobe: Steve’s Take

According to Mashable, Steve Jobs has replied to some emails from Greg Slepak from Tao Effect (developers of Espionage) regarding the situation of Apple banning applications written in languages other than Objective C. Apparently Steve Jobs is endorsing John Gruber’s take on the subject, but I suggest you to take a look at the full post here.

Transport App: Easy iPad / iPhone File Sharing From Your Mac

How do you share files on the Internet? Do you use a Mac app like the recently released Cloud, or you chose to stick with the good old Droplr? Maybe you just use a web service to share pictures and shorten links, ‘cause you’re not really into this file sharing thing. Either way, you want to keep everything simple and straightforward and have your files shared just fine across multiple devices so that your online fellows can access it anywhere. I understand your position, you don’t want to spend too much time searching for the right app for you, so you’re still sticking with emails to send links and PDFs to your collaborators. What an old way to accomplish tasks.

The app we’re going to talk about today is called Transport, woks for both iPhone and iPad (it’s a Universal app), and allows you to quickly upload and share files from your Mac to your portable devices.

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OpenFeint’s Founder Talks Game Center

TUAW has published an interesting interview with OpenFeint’s founder Jason Citron here, where he talks about the future  of the platform and the Game Center announcement.

From the post:

“So why now? “Apple stumbled onto this,” he told us. “They were trying to make cool phones, an iPod and a phone coming together. They opened up the SDK, and all of a sudden there were all these games out there, and now it’s disrupting the handheld gaming industry.” We’ve seen a few hints, mostly in commercials and rumors, that Apple has been looking at the iPhone and specifically at the iPod touch as a gaming platform, but Citron believes the wind has changed for good. “I don’t think they’re thinking of it as an accidental opportunity any more. I think they’re diving in headfirst.”

And considering all the mentions regarding the iPhone (and thus the App Store) being more successful than Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP as a gaming device, I definitely agree that Apple is seeing this a huge opportunity.